The plot was so improbable that even on a streaming video platform it would have been hard to fit. Saturday 26 August Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Meta (parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp), should have faced Elon Musk, leader of Tesla, SpaceX and X (ex Twitter), in an iron cage for a mixed martial arts fight (mixed martial arts, MMA), under the eyes of cameras from all over the world. In the real world, the clash will certainly not take place, but the media impact of this challenge, fueled by Elon Musk’s provocations and relaunches, will occupy social networks throughout the summer.
However, behind what appears to be a war of egos among Silicon Valley billionaires lurks an equally violent economic struggle that has culminated in recent months. The crux of the battle revolves around how to attract millions of users and associated revenues, both from subscriptions and advertising, to their respective social networks.
While it was Elon Musk who first physically challenged Mr. Zuckerberg, it was Meta who lit the fuse by launching Threads, a new service, a direct competitor to Twitter. Like the latter, Threads is a text-based social network. It allows you to post messages up to 500 characters, to which you can add photos, videos.
Threads, all-out attack on Twitter
Launched on July 6, this new service claims to distinguish itself from Twitter. In an interview granted to the American site The Verge on July 7, the boss of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, explains that Threads’ ambition is “create a public marketplace for communities on Instagram that have never really embraced Twitter, and for communities on Twitter (and other platforms) that are interested in a less angry place to talk”. He points out that nothing will be done to encourage people to talk about politics or current affairs.
The project is actually similar to a large-scale attack against Twitter. Mark Zuckerberg himself did not hesitate in July challenge the social network to the bird by setting the goal for Threads to be at least one billion users: “Twitter had the opportunity to do this but it couldn’t. We hope to achieve this goal. » Starting discussions may have fueled the Facebook founder’s hopes. In five days, the service launched in forty countries – but not in Europe – has attracted 100 million users, while Twitter has 540 million according to Elon Musk. A brilliant kickoff enough to worry the Tesla boss, whose arrival at the helm of Twitter has done damage.
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